The ^Burial-Place^ [Interment] of the Unknown (Synopsis)

Clark Ashton Smith

A lonely place in the mountains, where the trees and vegetation, within a small radius, have assumed monstrous, unearthly forms. In the midst is a boulder marked with strange, unknown letters or hieroglyphics. The place is discovered by a camper, who, fascinated, returns to it again and again. More and more, as he does so, his mind is troubled by unearthly ideas and images. One day, as he is approaching the place, he sees some peculiar beings, doubtless from another planet, who are performing odd rites and pouring oblations before the marked boulder. They disappear presently in a strange vessel; and the man is prompted to dig in the earth before the boulder. Here he finds the undecayed body of a creature similar to the ultra-terrestrial beings. After this, he goes mad, and also undergoes some unaccountable and monstrous physical changes.